ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to reflect on the power that the moving image has to represent medical and health discourse in China in the past and present, and to shape its future. It discusses film as a vernacular discourse that can generate alternative medical histories and unsettle received wisdom about health and care. The book focuses on films that attempt to change public thinking about health. It shows how the film stages a contrast between vernacular and long-established understandings of well-being and self-care in the bath-house culture of old Beijing and the notions of progress driving the demolition of the bath-house in which the film is set. The book explores how a film can open up self-reflexive discussion about taboo topics like unreasonable prolongation of life and abuse of power in the healthcare field.
